Dan Pope / Presenter

Dan Pope presents Under the Covers every Sunday at 3pm on Dundalk FM 97.7, a programme dedicated entirely to one of music’s most endlessly fascinating art forms: the cover version.

The premise is deceptively simple. Every week, Dan explores the extraordinary world of songs reinterpreted, reimagined, and transformed by artists other than their originators. From faithful recreations that pay direct homage to the source to completely genre-defying reinventions that make familiar songs unrecognisable, Under the Covers charts the full range of what happens when a musician takes someone else’s work and makes it their own.

What makes the show genuinely compelling is that cover versions reveal things about music that original recordings often conceal. When an artist strips away the production of a well-known song and rebuilds it in a different style, you hear the underlying structure, the quality of the writing, the flexibility of the melody. A great cover version is a kind of analysis as much as a performance. Dan brings that understanding to every episode.

He has been a valued and longstanding member of the Dundalk FM volunteer community, and his contribution extends beyond his own programme. During the pandemic period he was one of the presenters who adapted quickly to remote broadcasting, recording the show from home and helping to keep the station’s schedule intact at a time when the studios were closed. He has also been a supportive presence for newer presenters coming through the station.

Under the Covers airs every Sunday at 3pm. If you have never thought much about cover versions before, Dan Pope will change that.